Grassroots sport is returning in Northern Ireland, but the damage to children’s sporting development could be huge after a year of lockdown bans

Stormont’s Executive - not before time - has said that affiliated sports clubs will finally be able to train again in groups of up to 15 from that date.

It’s the first step on the path to grassroots sports matches resuming, though the dates for competitive fixtures resuming remain clouded in uncertainty.

The question is, how serious is the damage to sport, and particularly to children’s sport, caused by a year of on and off lockdowns?

The full extent of the damage probably won’t be known for quite some time but there is real ground to make up from April 12, a challenge for sports clubs to reinvigorate interest among children that has waned in the last year.

Many parents will say their children have lost interest in sport over the last 12 months, even when training resumes there will be a challenge to get them back, to prise them away from the video games. In my own housing development, where once groups of children played football together every day, children now starved of sports training have seldom got a ball at their feet.

Many sports are technical, not least my first loves of cricket and football, so what will have been the impact of a year without sporting development for thousands of children? Even the most naturally talented youngsters depend on advice from qualified coaches, but that’s almost been entirely absent for the last 12 months.

This of course was a sporting ban that made little sense. Many of our politicians, and probably all of our medical advisers, may never admit it, but there is no evidence that outdoor sport ever had the slightest impact on coronavirus transmission rates. Has anyone heard of a single case anywhere that can be traced to transmission between two adults (or children) playing contact sport? The medical advisers might point to the potential dangers of parents congregating at the sidelines or players travelling together in the same car but none of these problems are remotely insurmountable. Any parent who desperately wants their child to return to sport would gladly sacrifice the chance to watch the game in person. And if you have to travel on your own to practice or to a match, then so be it.

What has disappointed me has been the near silence of the relevant sporting bodies. Contrast the deafening silence from the likes of the IFA and RFU with how hospitality and retail organisations have fought their corner over the restrictions in Northern Ireland. The lack of urgency from those bodies suggested they were content enough because at least so-called elite sport was still taking place in lockdown. Is it any wonder that grassroots sport seemed to be barely mentioned when restrictions were being discussed when the sporting governing bodies said almost nothing?

It was left for a firm of solicitors in Co Tyrone, John C McNally and Co, and the Glenavon manager Gary Hamilton to fight the corner of our children. Hamilton’s emotional appeal about the sporting ban on YouTube late last week was very significant, not least because he has two children of his own, and as a former professional footballer, he knows only too well that a year of lost development could ultimately cost a teenager a future career in sport.

Sport has fared less well than some indoor activities. At various stages, congregations have been allowed to return to church, and people have been allowed to shop in garden centres, while children have been banned from playing outdoor sport.

Many will question the wisdom of at-risk people being allowed to congregate indoors while children, at almost no risk of Covid, could not play sport with their peers in the fresh air. After all, our medical advisers repeatedly tell us the dangers of Covid transmission subsides dramatically when outside.

What is also curious is how children are allowed to mix freely in play parks, hundreds at a time across the Province, with no restrictions, but they can’t play sport in much smaller groups. The mind boggles.

One of the biggest questions is will we be back here some time in the future, will outdoor sport continue to be a target for lockdown restrictions even though it clearly has minimal,if any, impact on the spread of Covid-19?

With the progress of the vaccination programme and the better weather, the prospects for summer sports like cricket look bright. Despite starting late last summer, local cricket was able to enjoy more than two months of competitive fixtures. A fuller season should take place in 2021.

Longer term, winter sports will be nervous, especially with the chief medical officer already predicting an autumn surge of Covid cases even though that’s six months away and all adults will have been offered a vaccine by then.

Sport is proven to keep people physically fit and helps with mental health. Let’s hope this is the final time it is locked down.

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